Accra, Feb.3, GNA–The Minerals Commission Thursday presented a cheque for GHc2 million to the Appiatse Support Fund towards the reconstruction and restoration of livelihoods in the town.
The community was razed down by a massive explosion on Thursday, January 2022 when a truck conveying explosives allegedly collided with a motorcycle resulting in an explosion, which claimed 14 lives, injured 179 people and displaced more than 400 others in the Western Region.
Presenting the dummy cheque at a brief ceremony in Accra, Mrs Barbara Oteng Gyasi, Board Chair of the Minerals Commission, said the Appiatse tragedy was a national loss and behoved on all corporate entities and individuals to support the reconstruction of the community.
She was of the belief that the support would bring reprieve to the Committee tasked to mobilise sufficient funds for the reconstruction of the community.
The Commission, she said, would make sure it enforced the highest standards of health and safety requirements as spelt out in the Minerals and Mining Explosive Regulation 2012, (LI 2177) and other mining safety legislations relating to the extractive sector.
The Board Chair gave the assurance that the Commission would review the report presented by the five-member ministerial investigative committee that investigated the disaster and sanction anyone found culpable of breaching the mining regulation.
On behalf of the Commission, he expressed her condolences to the bereaved families and victims of the Appiatse explosion.
Reverend Dr Joyce Rosaline Aryee, Chairperson of the Appiatse Support Fund, who received the cheque on behalf of the Committee, thanked the Commission for the gesture and reiterated the call on all well-meaning Ghanaians to support a worthy cause.
She believed the donation by the Commission would herald more donations and entreated all and sundry to support the reconstruction efforts.
She urged the affected persons who are currently housed in temporary structures to exercise patience as measures are underway to restore them.
GNA